[NRG Request] Developer Tools | US$200k

[Savio-Sou]

Noir set out as the universal language for Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), rewriting the status quo of development barriers and unlocking intuitive access to performant cryptographic privacy for developers.

A robust set of developer tools is hence essential for Noir to shine its full glory, as the programming language for general purpose ZKPs that is easy to develop, productize with and maintain.

Arbitrum Foundation, Aztec Labs, Stellar Development Foundation, and World Foundation are strong believers in Noir’s vision of universal access to ZKPs, and are together providing US$200k in grants to incubate state of the art developer tools for the language.

This request looks for proposals to build, document and launch developer tools for Noir developers.

Proposals should take into account that relevant primitives might be missing or under-optimized in Noir (e.g. language features, libraries). Implementing, optimizing and open-sourcing these should be considered in-scope and highlighted in the proposals.

Submission

To ensure consistency and facilitate the review process, please follow the following submission format:

• Title
  A concise, descriptive title for your proposal
• Summary
  A high-level summary of your proposal (≤200 words)
• Motivation
  Describe the problem your proposal sets out to address, supported with research- and data-based justifications (e.g. community polls, user research)
• Methodology
  Explain the development approach and design details
• Business Model
  Describe the strategy towards sustainable funding for further developments on the project
• Timeline and Deliverables
  Specify project milestones and what is expected to be achieved when
• Team
  List team member(s) that will work on the initiative, relevant experience, and contacts (Signal and/or email)
• Start Date
  State your preferred start date (e.g. 2 June 2025)
• Questions
  List outstanding questions, if any

Submit a proposal by creating a new post in this category using the format by 23 May 2025.

Requirements

Implementations of proposals should observe the following requirements. If your proposal could not meet all requirements, please highlight the missing requirements accordingly.

• Intended project users MUST be Noir developers
• Final implementation MUST be well documented
• Final implementation MUST be open sourced with a permissive license (e.g. MIT)
• Final implementation SHOULD be thoroughly tested

Evaluation

Selected proposals will be announced on GitHub Discussions by 30 May 2025.

Main Track

Proposals will be evaluated on five criteria:

• Adherence to submission format and requirements
• Impact
• Quality
• Feasibility
• Financial sustainability

Proposals of standalone tools (require no changes to Noir’s codebase) are preferred, considering Noir is marching towards version 1.0 code freeze.

Resources that might be useful:

• Noir Discord: https://discord.gg/JtqzkdeQ6G
• Existing Noir developer tools: https://github.com/noir-lang/awesome-noir/#dev-tools
• Y Combinator’s guide to business models: https://www.ycombinator.com/library/Gh-yc-guide-to-business-models

Arbitrum Stylus Verifier Track

Proposals of implementing an Arbitrum Stylus verifier in Rust for the Barretenberg proving backend specifically will be evaluated on four criteria:

• Adherence to submission format and requirements (except business model section in proposals)
• Impact
• Quality
• Feasibility

Resources that might be useful:

• Arbitrum Stylus: https://arbitrum.io/stylus
• Barretenberg’s Solidity verifier: https://github.com/AztecProtocol/aztec-packages/tree/master/barretenberg/sol/src/honk

Stellar Soroban Verifier Track

Proposals of implementing an Stellar Soroban verifier in Rust for the Barretenberg proving backend specifically will be evaluated on four criteria:

• Adherence to submission format and requirements (except business model section in proposals)
• Impact
• Quality
• Feasibility

Proposals should take into account that cryptographic primitives could be missing or under-optimized (e.g. Soroban does not have a native host functions for the BN254 curve). Implementing / Integrating relevant libraries should be considered in-scope.

Resources that might be useful:

• Stellar Soroban: https://stellar.org/soroban
• Barretenberg’s Solidity verifier: https://github.com/AztecProtocol/aztec-packages/tree/master/barretenberg/sol/src/honk
• Soroban SDK BLS12-381 crypto library: https://github.com/stellar/rs-soroban-sdk/blob/main/soroban-sdk/src/crypto/bls12_381.rs
• Soroban BLS signature example (implemented with BLS12-381): https://github.com/stellar/soroban-examples/tree/main/bls_signature
• arkworks’ bn254 library: https://github.com/arkworks-rs/algebra/tree/master/curves/bn254

FAQ

Q1. What is considered a Noir developer tool?

A quick rule of thumb is i) built for Noir developers as users, and ii) built primarily in languages except Noir (e.g. Rust, JavaScript, etc.).

Anything that helps accelerate Noir developers writing their programs / libraries is usually in scope. If you are not sure if a specific idea fits, drop a question below!

Q2. How will proposals be chosen?

The selection committee will consist of representatives from Aztec Labs and possibly additional teams, who will evaluate and select proposals following the criteria and deadlines above.

Q3. Who can submit proposals?

Researchers, developers, and technology enthusiasts with an interest in Noir research are welcome to propose.

Q4. Can I submit more than one proposal?

Yes, you can submit multiple proposals for different ideas you might have.

Q5. Can I update my proposal after submission?

Yes, edits are welcome up to the submission deadline.

Q6. Should I submit a proposal early?

Yes. Early submissions have higher review priorities for request sponsors and the community to share feedback on, which you can incorporate before the submission deadline.

Q7. What if my proposal does not fully meet the requirements?

Worry not, you are welcome and encouraged to submit your proposal and participate in the discussion. Your ideas could contribute valuable insights and help shape further research.

Q8. How will grants be distributed?

Main Track:
Up to five proposals will be selected, each supported with $5,000 monthly over 6 months.

Arbitrum Stylus Verifier Track:
Up to one proposal will be selected, supported with $5,000 monthly over 3 months.

Stellar Soroban Verifier Track:
Up to one proposal will be selected, supported with $5,000 monthly over 6 months.

Q9. Can I support the campaign if I am not planning to propose?

Yes, there are different ways to support the research campaign, including but not limited to:

• Amplifying the campaign on socials
• Sharing feedback on proposal submissions
• Sponsor additional prizes

Q10. What should I do if I have a question not covered above?

Please comment your questions below, to which the sponsors will reply as soon as possible.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Arbitrum Foundation, Aztec Labs, Stellar Development Foundation, and World Foundation for sponsoring the grants for selected proposals.

Thank you to Arnaud and Pedro for reviewing the draft of this request.

DISCLAIMER

The information set out herein is for discussion purposes only and does not represent any binding indication or commitment by Aztec Labs and its employees to take any action whatsoever, including relating to the structure, any potential operation and/or features of the Aztec protocol, the protocol roadmap or the Noir language. In particular: (i) nothing in these posts is intended to create any contractual or other form of legal relationship with Aztec Labs or third parties who engage with such posts (including, without limitation, by submitting a proposal or responding to posts), (ii) by engaging with any post, the relevant persons are consenting to Aztec Labs’ use and publication of such engagement and related information on an open-source basis (and agree that Aztec Labs will not treat such engagement and related information as confidential), and (iii) Aztec Labs is not under any duty to consider any or all engagements, and that consideration of such engagements and any decision to award grants or other rewards for any such engagement is entirely at Aztec Labs’ sole discretion. Please do not rely on any information on this forum for any purpose - the development, release, and timing of any products, features or functionality remains subject to change and is currently entirely hypothetical. Nothing on this forum should be treated as an offer to sell any security or any other asset by Aztec Labs or its affiliates, and you should not rely on any forum posts or content for advice of any kind, including legal, investment, financial, tax or other professional advice.

[Savio-Sou]

If you aren't sure what to build, here are some stimulating ideas that might help inspire your project:

• Mobile proving
• Package management
• Side-by-side code inspector
• Development framework plugins
• ACIR transpiler
• Full noir_wasm / compilation in JS
• Boilerplate generator
• Malicious witness generator

Note that these are inspirations and inspirations only. They receive no preferential treatment during proposal evaluation, which is based solely on the criteria described in the main request.

[Savio-Sou]

Elaborating on why is the funding model defined this way / why is a business model important important as a few off-GitHub inbounds were received.

At Aztec Labs, we acknowledge:

1. A lot of potentials in productizing good tooling is currently untapped. Etherscan, albeit closed source, is a great example of how premium services could be modeled to propel development of open and public features that benefits the entire Ethereum community. There are very likely ways to productize your idea even if they don't seem immediate clear. Happy to support and brainstorm together if that's what you are blocked on, don't hesitate to comment below.

2. A tooling ecosystem funded largely by grants will lead the Noir ecosystem down a very risky path. Imagine all great Noir tooling suddenly cease to continue development, just because e.g. Aztec Labs cease to exist, changes leadership, changes strategy, etc. That would be a detrimental future of Noir which we should work against it today.

Think of the funding not as the price of contractual work, but support for you to seed exploration building a tooling product you feel excited about!

Feel free to reply with more questions, happy to answer them here on GitHub.

[Savio-Sou]

Selected proposals will be announced on GitHub Discussions by 30 May 2025.

Great to see the strong proposals from all of you!

The selection committee has been reviewing them and needs a few more days to finalize decisions, stay tuned for an announcement of selected proposals next week instead.